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‘Two, Santa’s coming soon,’ she whispered to herself as she counted out fifteen red satin sheets. She’d promised to buy herself something and pretend that Father Christmas had left her a gift. When she was little, he’d never stopped off at her mother’s house and, to be honest, she didn’t blame him. She wouldn’t have done either. ‘I’ll be out of here soon,’ she said, plucking black shiny pillowcases from the bale of laundry on the shelf, another blessing always on her list. ‘No mother. No school. I’m in London, the most exciting city in the world.’
Truth was, she was terrified of the place, and rarely left the building without Hannah. The streets confused her, and the Underground felt like a shuttle to hell, while the sheer number of people overwhelmed her, with everyone always seeming so angry. Occasionally, when she was out with Hannah, she spotted men who’d been to visit her. And sometimes they were with their wives or girlfriends. She made sure to stare hard, to see what they were like in their real lives, not the fantasy ones they played out with her. She liked to make sure they noticed her, too, by going up close and bumping into them or sitting down at a table nearby if they were in a café. She liked watching them squirm.
It always surprised her how they looked different in their suits and clothes that she normally only saw them in fleetingly. She was more familiar with what lay beneath the fabric – the rawness and vulnerability of them – and, even if she wanted to forget their individual smells and tastes and scars and hair, or if they had a skin condition or were fat or thin or scrawny or muscular, she couldn’t. She might have a tattoo on her thigh, but each man’s body was tattooed on her mind.
‘I have a roof over my head, a bed and food,’ Molly went on, chanting her usual list. She lugged a heavy armful of sheets and towels up the stairs to the ground floor with its reception desk and fish tank and coffee machine and waiting area, where the men picked out their girl. Then she climbed on up to the first floor – the rooms on this level being off limits as they were Darren and Luba’s quarters, with an office and the room where Vaughn stayed when he visited. ‘Management quarters’, they called it.
Suddenly, Molly stopped on the landing. There was a strange noise coming from behind Darren and Luba’s bedroom door as she passed. Moans and the sound of flesh slapping on flesh, cries of pleasure and rhythmic thumping were common in the building, stitched into its very fabric like the creaking boards, clanking water pipes and stiff old windows. It was a brothel, after all.
But this was different. This was someone being hurt.
Muffled cries for help were drowned out by the repeated thunk of a fist on bone. Then bone on a wall. Molly was about to continue up with the laundry, not wanting to get involved, but the swift and brittle smashing of glass froze her in her tracks again. She’d seen Darren go out about an hour ago and he hadn’t returned yet, but she didn’t know where Luba was.
Unintelligible but angry words – a man’s voice – drew Molly closer to the door. A moth to a flame. She put the pile of sheets on the landing floor then crept closer, crouching down and slowly bringing her eyes in line with the keyhole of the old lock. A chink of light the other side was interrupted by movement – someone in dark trousers pacing about. And then she saw a woman’s bare legs drawn up in a foetal position on the bed. She was cowering in fear. It was as Molly angled herself to get a better view that she saw the gun. She didn’t think she’d ever seen one before and was surprised at how small it was.
‘Get me those girls or I’ll fucking kill you,’ he spat out louder than any gunshot.
Vaughn.
Molly grabbed the stack of bed sheets and towels and sprinted off down the landing and up onto the next floor, just as the door she’d been peeking through was flung open. Over the edge of the banister, looking down, she caught the man’s eye as he stared up at her. For a second, both of them were frozen until Vaughn slowly lifted his arm, the gun still in his hand. He pointed it right at Molly and then made a jerking motion, as if he’d really pulled the trigger. Then he laughed and walked off. A moment later, and Luba appeared in the doorway in her underwear, blood streaming from her nose. That’s when Molly carried on running up the stairs, adding ‘not being shot’ to her list of blessings.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HANNAH – NOW
I’ve managed to avoid being alone with Rob for twenty-four hours, but when I get home, my mind is still on fire from what I heard behind the closed door at Scarlett’s – Vaughn’s sickening voice, his words shooting out on speakerphone as someone in the room argued back with him. I didn’t wait around to find out who was daring to cross Vaughn and ran back to my car, just wanting to get out of the place.
Now, I find Rob in the study, sitting behind his desk. He calls out my name as I try to slip, unnoticed, past the semi-opened door on my way to the kitchen.
‘Hey,’ I say back. ‘Are Natalia and Amber still out?’
Rob nods, staring at me with his fingers hovering over his keyboard.
‘You still working?’
He nods again. I can’t claim be a hundred per cent certain what it is he spends his time doing, exactly, hunched over his desk until the early hours sometimes, but I’m glad he left the bank a few years ago. In the end, it didn’t suit him at all. In his time working there, he’d progressed to area manager, and anyone could see that the man he was didn’t fit easily into a grey suit and windowless office. He’d fallen into the job by trying to follow as closely as possible in his father’s footsteps and taking on a professional role, but everyone knows that the wrong-sized shoes won’t get you very far.
‘Where have you been?’ he asks flatly.
I hesitate before answering. Something’s wrong.
‘I was at the wholesaler earlier. Then I had to call in at a potential client’s premises. After that, I was back in the office.’ I’d not normally explain it in such a perfunctory way, but I don’t want him to know I went to Scarlett’s. ‘Where’s Belle?’
‘She went with Natalia to fetch Amber,’ he says. ‘She’s been home all day.’
‘Small mercies,’ I say, turning to go.
‘Why did you change the safe code?’
I stop in my tracks, slowly turning round. In that split second where our eyes meet, I see the sense of betrayal in Rob’s eyes. ‘No particular reas—’
‘What did you put in there, Hannah?’
I shrug, shaking my head. ‘Nothing, it’s just the usual documents and stuff. I changed the code when I took out Hannah’s birthday jewellery. We’re supposed to do it every so often for the insurance.’ I offer him a smile and turn to go again.
‘What are these?’ Rob says. I hear something dropping onto the desk and, when I turn round again, I see a plain folder lying in front of him.
The folder containing the photographs.
